2. Protests in the US are not nearly as effective as in other countries!! In Brazil for example they hiked the subway fair 10 cents and that sent 10’s of thousands to the streets and they shut down the government! No increase was done! In France the government wanted to start charging for college tuition! That was met with huge crowds and the government backed down! In those countries they presented a unified front, not here in the US!!! Protesters are met with military vehicles and assault weapons and jailed for non-infractions! Even reporters of these protests have been jailed with no cause whatsoever! Not to mention the government tracking of reporters and leaders of Black Lives Matter top leaders! It’s a systematic way of silencing the protesters and the reporters who cover these stories!

3. Asset forfeiture is like putting somebody in jail without a trial and without being charged with a crime. In asset forfeiture, you have to prove your innocence. 90 percent of U.S. bills carry traces of cocaine 100 percent of bills from a few large urban areas tested positive for cocaine. Money can be contaminated by being put in counting machines with tainted bills.

4. (Published 7-14-16) http://data.huffingtonpost.com/2016/jail-deaths SINCE SANDRA BLAND – 810 people (and counting) who have lost their lives in jail in the year after Sandra Bland died. One third of them (182) occurred within just three days.

5. 1992 there were 810,500 prisoners in America. Since then, the prison population in tripled to 2.3 million people, 713 behind bars for every 100,000 people. Another 4,708,100 are subject to custodial supervision, as probationers or parolees. Some 80,000 children are in juvenile jails. Of these, in 2014, 7 percent of state prisoners and 19 percent of federal prisoners were held in facilities run by private, for-profit prison companies.

6. We have outrageous rates of incarceration that makes the US internal empire an expansive for-profit incarceration state.

7. Pretrial defendants make up 60% of our prison population. The US spends $14 billion a year to keep 500,000 people in jail

8. A white person smoking pot is a “Hippie” and a Black person doing it is a “criminal.” It’s evident in the school to prison pipeline and the fact that there are close to 20 people of color in prison for every white person.

9. Bail was originally created to keep high risk offenders from missing their court date or being a potential danger to society. Now it is being unjustly used as an indicator of wealth not risk. 500,000 un-convicted Americans are in limbo and waiting in jail for days, months and sometimes years to see a judge. The majority isn’t even high risk, violent offenders -they just can’t afford to pay their bail.

10. Pretrial defendants make up 60% of our prison population. The US spends $14 billon a year to keep 500,000 people in jail

11. Who makes money off mass incarceration? Not just private prison companies. Local economies in many regions of the country have become dependent on prisons and jails, complicating efforts to downsize. Prisons and jails mean revenue and cheap or free labor. Prisoners themselves have become commodities to be traded, sold, or bargained for — reminiscent of an era we supposedly left behind. ~ Michelle Alexander

12. “Black students are disproportionately suspended from class, starting as early as preschool, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education collected from all public school districts during the 2013-2014 school year (http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/2013-14-first-look.pdf) …. Black preschool children were 3.6 times more likely than white children to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions, according to the survey data. Although boys were more likely than girls to be suspended in preschool, black girls also had high rates of suspension.” The University of California, Los Angeles’ Civil Rights Project released a paper showing the cost of these suspensions — $35 billion in lost taxpayer revenue, for the cost of keeping people in prison and paying for health care, since students who get suspended are more likely to drop out of school, earn less money, and get involved in the criminal justice system.

13. Secretary of Education John King “Race isn’t the only factor that contributes to high rates of student discipline. Students with disabilities who are served by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act were twice as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions, and 67 percent of them underwent restraint and seclusion.”

14. The US 2 million inmates and their keepers are the ultimate captive market: Netting $74 billion annually. Corrections Corporation of America generated over $33.5 billion—and the actual cost to taxpayer is $39 billion in revenue in 2012… The average cost of incarcerating an American prisoner varies from state to state. New York taxpayers pay around $60,000 – $47,000 per year to incarcerate an inmate in California.

15. The median bail bond amount nationally is almost a full year’s income for the typical person unable to post a bail bond.
16. Overzealous prosecution, inadequate defense resources and a pattern of racial bias and exclusion.

17. Defendants are stuck with attorneys who lack the time, resources, or ability to zealously represent their clients as guaranteed by the Constitution

18. Police media, government, states, townships, judges, politicians they all love the criminal. Don’t let their words fool you. They love the criminal so much they make everything illegal, so they can build super prisons to fund more unjust laws.

19. We don’t need to remove people from the community who pose a serious threat or who cause serious harm.

20. The US treats people as less than human and puts them in literal cages, intentionally inflicting harm and suffering on them and then expect this will somehow improve them. It’s nonsensical, immoral, and counterproductive.

21. I doubt anyone would deny that communities and society as a whole should have some kind of organized and effective means of responding to real criminal activity, but the key word is *real*

22. Bryan Stevenson, author of “Just Mercy.” “Spending on jails and prisons by state and federal governments has risen from $6.9 billion in 1980 to nearly $80 billion today. Private prison builders and prison service companies have spent millions of dollars to persuade state and local governments to create new crimes, impose harsher sentences, and keep more people locked up so that they can earn more profits. Private profits has corrupted incentives to improve public safety, reduce the cost of mass incarceration, and most significantly, promote rehabilitation of the incarcerated. State governments have been forced to shift funds from public services, education, health, and welfare to pay for incarceration, and they now face unprecedented economic crises as a result. The privatization of prison health care, prison commerce, and a range of services has made mass incarceration a money-making windfall for a few and a costly nightmare for the rest of us.”

23. Another reminder that not only do our lives not matter, but our very humanity doesn’t either.